The year is 1964 and the Beatles are electrifying a continent with their blockbuster appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and live concerts. The lovable mop-tops from Liverpool stay on everybody's lips. "We just go hairy," for them, one Toronto girl gushes to an apparently unconvinced Larry Zolf from CBC Television's This Hour Has Seven Days. "Ringo for kingo!" yells a young boy. How long can Beatlemania last? "Six months — at least," exclaims a young George Harrison fan.

• The Beatles formed in 1957 as the Quarrymen. After huge success in Britain, they debuted in North America on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, 1964. There were 728 people in the theatre and 73 million watching on television, making it at the time the most watched show in history. In 2000, Entertainment Weekly magazine and music channel VH1 put the performance at the top of their list of rock 'n' roll's 100 greatest TV moments.

• During the show's first half, the band played All My Loving, 'Till There Was You, and She Loves You. Later in the show they played I Saw Her Standing There and I Want To Hold Your Hand. The Beatles were on the show again Feb. 16, 1964. A third performance, taped during Feb. 9 rehearsals, was broadcast Feb. 23. John Lennon was so nervous during the first performance that he taped song lyrics to the back of his guitar.

• The Beatles flew back to England after only a few shows but soon returned for a North American tour Aug. 19 to Sept. 20, 1964. Canadian dates were Aug. 22 at Empire Stadium in Vancouver, Sept. 7 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto (two shows) and Sept. 8 at The Forum in Montreal. Their two other Canadian appearances were both in Toronto — Aug. 17, 1965 and exactly one year later.

• Vancouver fans surged out of their seats toward the stage and into a line of police officers struggling to hold them back. Larry Kane, a journalist who travelled with the band, recalled police officers being forced to break their line of defence to rescue trampled girls. After the show, the Beatles raced to waiting cars. "For the first time on the tour, they looked to me like they were running for their lives," he said.

• Legendary Vancouver DJ Red Robinson tried to calm the screaming crowd. In a March 2003 interview with the website Elvis.com, he recalled: "I'm saying to the crowd, 'Listen, calm down or the Beatles are going to leave the stadium.' When I first went up on stage, I think it was Love Me Do they'd just finished playing. 'F--- off,' (John Lennon) said. 'Nobody interrupts a Beatles concert.'" When Lennon heard that the band's manager had sent Robinson, he added: "OK, mate, carry on."

• Eleven girls and one boy set up camp outside the Maple Leaf Gardens box office three nights before tickets for the Toronto show went on sale. They read Beatles stories and listened to the band's songs on transistor radios, the Globe and Mail reported. "The only male Beatle fan pretended not to be waiting in line as he stood nonchalantly aside, arms crossed," the newspaper said. They were jeered by hockey fans leaving a game.

• A 14-year-old Toronto girl managed to elude dozens of police guards to knock on the door of a Beatles party at the King Edward Hotel. She was about to be sent away when one Beatle said, "Aw, let the kid in." Police removed her after a half-hour because three friends downstairs kept "screaming that she's locked in a room with the Beatles. Some people seem to be getting a bit uneasy," the Telegram reported.

• The band was scared during the Montreal show because police took seriously an anonymous threat to kill "the English Jew" Ringo Starr. A plainclothes police officer crouched beside Ringo's drum kit, which he'd arranged to block any incoming bullets. In The Beatles Anthology, Ringo said he wondered how the officer would stop such a bullet. "I found this was getting funnier and funnier all the time, and the guy just sat there," the drummer said. Ringo isn't Jewish.

Medium: Television
Program: This Hour Has Seven Days
Broadcast Date: Sept. 4, 1964
Reporter: Larry Zolf
Guest(s): Jack Posluns
Duration: 3:01